


Faster than a Peach

by Artemis_Day



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M, Faster than a Kiss fusion, Gen, Romantic Comedy, Secret Marriage, Shojo Fusion, student!sarah, teacher!jareth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 18:52:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2358560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Day/pseuds/Artemis_Day
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sarah and Toby are left orphaned with nowhere to go, who should come to their rescue but the Goblin King himself?  In her rage and frustration, Sarah's lips loosen again, and this time, there is no getting rid of the annoying king.  Now Sarah finds herself contending with Jareth everywhere she goes, but especially in the classroom.  No matter what, though, no one can ever find out their greatest secret of all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faster than a Peach

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a fusion with the shojo manga, Faster than a Kiss. It is something of a spiritual successor to my Lokane fic, The Science Club President is a Maid!, a fusion with Kaichou wa Maid-sama!
> 
> What can I say? I love my ships, and I love shojo manga. Why not mix the two together?

The alarm clock rings like a thousand screeching birds in one's ear.

A body wrapped up in blankets lurches forward, groans emitting through the thick green and gold comforter.

A hand breaks free and slaps around blindly for the clock. A spiral notebook and a family photo fall off the nightstand, but eventually, she strikes gold.

The awful noise gone, the young woman feels safe to stick her head out. Her mirror shows a head of messy hair and purple bags under her eyes. Altogether, it gives her the distinct look and air of a crazed axe murderer, which is exactly what she feels like.

_**_

_My name is Sarah Williams. I'm three months shy of eighteen years old, and I'm a high school student._

_I'm not exactly in a good place right now._

_Let me start at the beginning…_

**

Toby is already up and dressed when Sarah gets downstairs. She's worked her hair into a decent state and dressed herself in her casual Tuesday best: worn blue jeans and a button down orange shirt she may have worn yesterday or the day before. It carried the obvious scent of lunch room mashed potatoes around the collar.

"Morning, Sarah!" Toby says, running to her for a hug. "I had cereal for breakfast. You want some?"

"Oh, you should have waited for me if you wanted breakfast." She hugs her brother tightly, glancing around in all directions for any hint of a shadow, a shine of glitter, or a goblin's footprint.

"You always make me breakfast. This time, I'm making it for you!"

He leads Sarah to the kitchen table where two bowls have been set up. One has a mountain of Captain Crunch in it and a puddle of milk all around it. Sarah almost screams, but stops short. Months ago, Karen would still be here to punish Toby herself, but for Sarah, there is no point. The mess will be gone by the time they get home anyway. Might as well just put a towel down on the chair and have some cereal.

She does just that, popping a few pieces of mostly dry cereal in her mouth until the clock reads seven o'clock.

"Okay, let's get moving. I have school and so do you, kid."

"I like school," said Toby.

Sarah musses up Toby's hair. He is just the most adorable five-year-old in the entire world. No one can ever convince her otherwise.

"Glad to hear it," she says as they head for the door.

_**_

_About six months ago, my dad and my stepmom got in a car accident. A drunk driver plowed into them on the highway. Isn't that always how it happens?_

_Toby and I were home at the time. The police had to come in the dead of night to let us know we'd just become orphans._

_Well, technically, only Toby is an orphan. I still have my birth mother, which is to say my birth mother is alive and in no danger of dying anytime soon. To say that I have her in the traditional sense would indicate that she's both in our lives and actually cares. Our stay in her custody lasted about as long as her star-studded relationships do. She threw us on the curb with her latest beau a month in, after the demands of raising two children (read: after she needed to pay attention to us) got to be too much._

_After that, we tried staying with Toby's grandmother. She was a nice enough lady and a perfectly loving grandmother… to Toby._

_Me? Well, she didn't seem to know what to do with a moody teenage girl who'd just lost her parents and had no blood relation to her at all. So mostly, she just did nothing at all. She gave Toby Karen's old bedroom with a four poster bed and a brand new hardwood desk (what the hell was a four year old going to do with that?) while I made due with the creaky old bed in the guestroom that smelled like mushrooms. At first, I was ready to grin and bear it for Toby's sake, but then I started reading a bunch of child rearing books and realized that the steady diet of cookies and ice cream Granny was giving him was going to have him on a motorized scooter before he was ten._

_That and I got tired of being called 'Samantha' all the time._

_After that, the only other relative either of us had was our Dad's first cousin, who suffers from Down syndrome and lives in a special home._

_We went to visit him after leaving Granny's. I don't know, I guess I just needed to see for myself that there was no one left for us. It was raining that day, and I found us a nice little abandoned bus stop with a roof overhead. That would keep us dry until the rain stopped. Then I thought we could go looking for a nice bridge to live under._

_Amazing right? Only a month since Dad and Karen had died, and Toby and I were homeless and alone._

**

Sarah sleeps her way through algebra. Her seat is in the back and the teacher is oblivious anyway, so no one bothers her. When the bell jolts her awake, Sarah staggers with her bag into the hall and stops dead in her tracks when it hits her.

Fourth period just ended.

That means it's time for fifth period.

A girl with blonde hair named Tammy, who is something like a friend to Sarah, runs by.

"Hurry up, slowpoke! It's time for fifth period!"

Many other girls run after her, all of them squealing and red in the face and oh so geared up for fifth period in a way all but one or two boys and Sarah herself never would be.

"I'm gonna get there first!" one girl shouts in the middle of the crowd. She probably isn't, whoever she is, but why ruin her dreams?

Sarah sighs and shuffles along at a pace as slow as ever.

_**_

_Those girls sure do seem psyched to go and learn, huh?_

_Well, they're not. Not really._

_Don't get me wrong, I would love to say that I go to some special school for kids who love classic literature as much as I do and wet themselves at the thought of forty minutes dedicated entirely to it._

_I would love even more to tell you that our class is taught by a well-educated fifty-something from an Ivy League school who prepares us for our future with a formal, yet friendly guiding hand._

_But I cannot. On either count._

_See, when these girls (and two guys) are running like race horses to their fifth period class, it's not because of a love of reading or even a passing fancy for it._

_No, it's all because every single one of them is hot for teacher._

**

The classroom door opens when all the students are seated and ready to 'learn' (read: stare with either unbridled lust or boundless jealousy).

Sarah rolls her eyes as he makes his entrance, like she has every other time he's done this, which is literally every single day since he started working here.

Stupid glittery showboater.

Why can't he just stay at his desk between classes like all the other teachers do?

Is it really so hard  _not_  to be a giant superficial narcissist all the time?

' _Of course it is, Sarah,'_  her snarky inner voice says.  _'You're not dealing with your average everyday English teacher here. You're dealing with a king. A magical king from a magical kingdom at that.'_

Ah, right. How could she have forgotten?

"Good morning, class," he says like every other morning.

"Good morning, Mr. King," answer the star struck half of the class (the other half gives him death glares).

He's much the same today, having never cared to change up his 'teacher' wardrobe like he does everything else he wears. The basic formula consists of: brown or black slacks, white button down shirt beneath a grey sweater vest, hair straightened and tied back because he seduced the school principal into letting him keep his hair long over the dress code violations, silver framed glasses that he definitely doesn't need but wears anyway like a tool, and a nice silk tie to cap the whole look off.

Sarah hasn't got a clue where he learned to dress like that, any more than she knows why he decided to pretend to be a teacher in the first place. All she knows is that his peculiar choice of fashion should be- would in fact be on anyone else- the epitome of loser nerd.

But Jareth just looks sexy as all hell.

And that, as Sarah will attest to until her dying day, is absolutely, utterly, and in all possible regards  _NOT FAIR!_

"I hope you've all completed the assigned reading." Jareth turns to write tonight's homework on the board. "We're going to have a surprise quiz in just a moment."

In any other classroom on the face of the earth, a pop quiz would be met with bitching and whining and possible suicide attempts, but all this class can do is sigh and stare like dopey fools as Jareth turns back around and graces them with a smile that has to have some kind of magic spell laced into it. There is no way he can make two girls in the back faint based on that alone without some kind of supernatural intervention. Sarah will never be convinced otherwise.

"I can already tell at least five of you are unprepared."

It's a surprisingly even mix of boys and girls who get sheepish at this. For all that they lust over Jareth, they're not going to listen to him any more than they to the other teachers. Sarah is one of the few fully prepared to take this quiz (if only because the ass told her about it in advance).

"I know for a fact that my favorite student is ready."

Sarah closes her eyes tight, willing herself to curl up in a ball and shrink until her whole body disappears. It's the only way to escape Jareth standing over her desk and the dozen stares of fangirlish rage being thrown her way now.

"I'm tempted to skip the quiz and just have you read from the text until the bell rings, Miss Williams."

God, does she hate it when he calls her that. It's always with a hint of mocking and glee, because that's not her name anymore and they both know it.

(Sarah would love to know what her name is now. He still won't tell her.)

"Well, I suppose it would be wrong of me as your teacher to put the burden of making you all learn on dear Miss Williams' shoulders. Mr. Crudup, please hand out the pop quizzes."

The burly football player in the front row slides out of his desk to collect the quizzes. He tosses one haphazardly on each desk.

"Teacher's pet," he hisses when he gets to Sarah.

' _Yeah, I wish that's all it was,'_  she thinks.

**

_You might be a little confused about some things, like what the king of the Goblins- whom I had previously defeated to win back my brother about four years ago- is doing teaching English at a public high school in New England._

_Well, there is a very good explanation for that._

_Or, at the very least, there is an explanation._

_You might also be curious as to that whole name situation mentioned above. That also has an explanation._

_In fact, it's the very same explanation for why Jareth is now my teacher._

_Some of you have probably figured it out for yourselves, but for those of you who still need a hint…_

_**_

"Come on, Sarah! Let's get dinner on the table."

Dinner is really just a pizza Sarah ordered half an hour ago, because she got sick and tired of waiting for  _somebody_  to show up and make them something.

One of these days, Sarah was going to learn to cook for herself, and then she was going to learn how to cook  _well_ , and then she was getting out of this place.

She'd just have to get a job and support Toby on her own. She could do that if she had to! Lots of people did that and they were just fine (aside from the lack of sleep and the working multiple dead end jobs and the eternal loss of all hopes and dreams…)

If Sarah could just come home to Toby and not have to be on her guard for a knock on the door by someone who  _has a freaking house key anyway_ , it would all be worth it.

That day is still a bit in the making, so for now she listens for that knocking, and when it comes, she lets Toby take her hand and run her to the bottom of the stairs where they can wait for him to let himself in.

And when he does open the door and step inside- a long brown overcoat covering his stupid 'dorky but not dorky teacher clothes' she takes a deep breath, swallows the pitiful fragments of what used to be her pride and says:

"Welcome home,  _darling_."

And Jareth smiles and takes her in his arms and holds her in his inhuman grip while Toby hugs him around the waist.

"We missed you, Jareth!" the boy says happily.

"Ah, I do so love coming home to my lovely wife and my favorite little heir."

_**  
Yup, you read that right._

_I, the person formerly known as Sarah Williams, am married to the Goblin King._

_How did this happen, you ask?_

_Well let me rewind a little bit and take you back to that day in the rain._

******

**FIVE MONTHS EARLIER**

The rain has been coming down harder since they took shelter here. Water seeps through broken plastic and pools above them. If it breaks, they'll be drenched, and Sarah is down to her last clean pair of pants, so that would really suck. She doesn't even have any shampoo if her hair gets wet.

' _Ugh, listen to me, worrying about these stupid little things like I still have all my basic needs met. Stupid, selfish idiot. You have a brother to think about!'_

Toby is wrapped up in her arms, not fussing for once and munching on the last of the energy bars Sarah had packed when they left. By now, Granny had to know they were gone. She'd probably call the police and tell them some big scary black man in a van had kidnapped them, or if she wasn't in one of her racist moods, maybe she'd make Sarah the kidnapper.

If it were so, at least she'd get three square meals and a bed in prison. Maybe this was a good idea after all.

Sarah slumps over against the plastic wall, dirty rainwater soaking through her raincoat and into the flimsy shirt beneath it.

"I don't know what we're going to do, Toby," she says. The boy has finished eating the power bar and his eyes are drooping. "We're in bad shape here. We can't go to Linda because she doesn't want us, and we can't go back to Granny because she doesn't have a clue how to take care of us. God, I wish there was someone-  _anyone_ \- who could help us."

It takes a minute for it to hit her. Somewhere between the rain no longer falling on their bus stop hideout as if an invisible shield has been erected over it and the creeping shadow over their heads that first forms an owl and then a man, Sarah remembers for the first time in years the power of wishes.

She's just made a wish.

And it's summoned the Goblin King right to her.

As if this day couldn't get any better.

"My, my, my," he has a rich and velvety voice like a rockstar. Sarah would've swooned in her more innocent days. "Only three years after your decisive victory over me, and look how far you've fallen."

Sarah closes her eyes. Maybe if she keeps them closed and wills it with all her might, he will go back to the hovel he came from and she could go back to forgetting he ever existed.

"Come now, precious, don't ignore me." He sounds like he's right in front of her now. She hugs Toby tightly to her.

"Go away," she says, sounding braver than she feels. "I don't want you here."

He tsks.

"Lies don't become you, Sarah. Just a moment ago, you wished for me to come and help you."

He sounds so smug about it that she has to open her eyes.

"No, I most certainly didn't," she say, and she ignores as best she can how unchanged and beautiful he is. "I wished for  _someone_ to come and help us, but not you."

"I believe you listed 'anyone' as your main criteria." He's enjoying this, the sick bastard. "'Anyone' can mean many things. It just so happens, I've kept a close eye on you and young Tobias. I've been very surprised and saddened by the unfortunate turn your lives have taken. Losing not one but both parents at so young an age cannot be easy. Rest assured you have my condolences."

Sarah doesn't know what it is about that. She probably never will.

It may be the way he's saying it, or the words he's using, or just the plain faced fact that he's here at all after three years of her trying to convince herself that he never existed at all.

Most likely, it is a combination of these and many other factors all coming together at exactly the wrong time. In the span of two seconds, Sarah has set Toby's sleeping form down, placed herself between him and Jareth, and now she's poking him on the chest right over that stupid gaudy necklace of his, and boy does he look surprised.

"How dare you!" Sarah roars in his face. "HOW DARE YOU! You think the one thing I want right now, when I'm homeless with a baby brother to feed and no one in the world to help me is your  _pity?_ Don't make me laugh! If you're not going to do anything useful, then you can just move your ass back to that labyrinth of yours, you hear me?"

He does, and now his smile is disappearing, and Sarah should be grabbing Toby and running like the wind, but she can't make her legs or her arms move.

"And what, dare I ask, would you consider 'useful'?"

And that is the moment Sarah Williams completely losses her mind.

"Take care of us yourself," she says with all the reckless desperation of someone who has absolutely nothing left to lose. "I mean it. I  _dare_  you to do it. Take me and Toby in and provide for us. That's what you can do."

If she thought he was surprised before, she had no idea how far this could go. That Jareth probably has a thousand different women throwing themselves at his feet is inarguable, but she doubts it has ever been for a reason like this before.

Nonetheless, Jareth actually appears to be mulling it over, even as he's stepping out of range of her poking finger.

"Typically where I'm from, a man of my stature would only take someone of no blood relation into his home if a marriage is involved," he says.

"Then marry me," Sarah says.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me!" Sarah is by now beyond the point of caring (and rational thinking). Plus, she's hungry. Hunger does weird things to you. "Marry me and help me take care of my brother or leave. It's your choice, bub."

"Alright, then I'll marry you."

"Good!"

_**_

_And now we're married._

_No, I'm serious. That's how it happened._

_By the time I came to my senses and realized what I had done, Jareth had gotten ahold of both a state marriage certificate and this enormous scroll with golden tassels around it that apparently was some kind of rite of marriage back in the Underground._

_I begged and pleaded with him, told him I was sorry and I didn't mean it and even offered to run the Labyrinth again in exchange for getting the marriage dissolved._

' _What's said is said,' was all he'd ever say about it, and eventually I realized that he was a brick wall when it came to my status as his new wife (and Queen I suppose. We haven't really talked about that part yet)._

_The jerk even bought back our old house from the real estate agency. I still don't know where he got all that money, and I'm honestly afraid to ask._

_The whole thing, plus the promise of having his old toys and bed back, endeared Toby to Jareth right away. He's always been a very happy, loving child, but I think I should have put a little more emphasis on not trusting strangers (especially creepy magical ones) when I had the chance._

_But now I'm pretty much stuck, aren't I?_

_I have a Goblin King for a husband who's taken over my house and commandeered my parent's bedroom, which I'm not even sure he uses. For all I know, he spends his nights back at his kingdom making sure the goblins don't go native while he's screwing around playing 'house' with us._

_At least so far he hasn't expected me to fulfill 'wifely duties' if you catch my drift. We don't even share a room. That's one thing in my favor, because I happen to have the misfortune of living in a state where the age of consent is sixteen, and I'm pretty sure I can't call the cops on what is technically a 'foreign dignitary' anyway._

_So, there you go. That is how I got to where I am now._

_Actually, now that I think about it, that story really doesn't explain why he's disguising himself as a human to work at my school, does it?_

_Eh, best I can figure, he's just trying to piss me off._

_It's working._

**

"Sarah, can you please pass back the graded Unit tests?"

Jareth drops the stack of papers on her desk, and the very first one bears her name and an enormous A plus that covers half of it.

"You'll notice I have arranged them in order of grade, the highest of all being first."

Jareth winks at her, and he's so very obvious about it that  _of course_  everyone sees it, and  _of course_  her classmates are all either sharing a laugh at her expense or trying to use telekinesis to make her head explode (she hopes they succeed). It gets worse when she's actually handing back the tests, and it takes her forever to get to some of Jareth's more ardent fangirls.

"Freak," one of them hisses when she passes them by and drops a C minus on their desk.

"Yup," Sarah answers, looking straight ahead.

**

When the school day comes to a merciful end, Sarah sits in her father's old car- the one Jareth somehow retrieved from the impound and had repainted for her birthday- and waits for the elementary school doors to open. She's one in a long line of cars, with soccer moms all around her and one big guy in a monster truck who they're all glaring at when his needlessly large tires obstruct their vision. Sarah personally doesn't mind his presence. It just means nobody is paying attention to her.

Monster truck guy is smoking a cigarette and reading some kind of car magazine with his feet propped up on the dashboard. He's parked right behind Sarah today and takes up her entire rearview mirror. She watches him for a few seconds before that gets boring, and by then the doors are opening and the children spilling out.

On stubby legs, they run for their parents, calling out to their mothers and fathers. They run into their arms and kiss their faces. Sarah sits back and watches them, her heart twisting. Toby used to greet their dad like that when he came home from work. She did too when she was his age.

That felt so long ago…

He comes out now, running at top speed with two bigger kids on his tail. It's only when he's halfway to the car that Sarah realizes those kids aren't running with him, but  _after_  him. They slow when Toby gets to the car and climbs in the back seat.

"Yeah, go away, Orphan kid! No one wants you here!"

Sarah clutches the steering wheel. The boy who said that runs to a car further up in line, while his friend departs in the other direction. She doesn't care to see where he goes, or to watch for the other one after he disappears from view. She has no room yet to back up into the street, not with Monster Truck guy right behind her with his massive wheels on her fender.

He's impatient too. He starts honking his horn when Sarah doesn't move. It's just one small step below fog horn and Sarah's ears are likely to be ringing for the rest of the week if he keeps it up.

"Hey, get moving!" Monster Truck guy shouts out the window.

"I love to," Sarah mutters back. She'd like to give him a more appropriate response, but she's in no mood to start fights with complete strangers. She gets enough of that kind of stimulation at home, thank you very much.

The cars do start moving once the crowd thins out. The school buses are right behind for the rest of the kids and the parents have to clear out. On the drive back home, Sarah is quiet. She has trouble keeping her eyes on the road and not staring at Toby through the rear view mirror. That he hasn't said a word is not too unusual. He was a little cranky this morning. That tends to mean he'll be more withdrawn in the afternoon. Everyone has those days, right?

It's different today, though. After what Sarah just saw, she wants to say something. She just isn't quite sure what.

"Did you learn anything fun in school today?" she asks.

Toby looks up.

"Yeah. Some things."

"Like what?"

Toby furrows his brow. "Uh… we learned that red and blue makes purple in art."

"That sounds pretty cool."

"And Mrs. Norton said my picture was pretty and that she liked the colors."

"Wow…" Sarah adjusts the mirror. "That's great. Do I get to see it?"

"In a few weeks. First Mrs. Norton wants to hang them up in the classroom. Then we can take them home."

Sarah nods, and conversation tapers off there. They're nearing home anyway. The big white house is up ahead and there is no other car in the driveway. Not that Jareth needs to drive with all his magic and powers and crap. However, once he made a home for himself on earth with them, he used his endless supply of money to buy himself a brand new cherry red convertible (and then he magically converted it to change color depending on his mood and to be the size of a stretch limousine on the inside, complete with bar and cable TV.

Why? Because like everything else, it pisses Sarah off.

He _lives_  for that.

"How about mac and cheese for dinner tonight?" Sarah asks on the front porch when she's fishing her key out of her pocket.

Pasta is just about the only thing Sarah can cook that doesn't burn, melt, or otherwise wind up inedible to all but the goblins. This is why Jareth's sarcastically exaggerated complimenting of her 'cooking' on nights that she orders pizza or Chinese is high on Sarah's mile long list, entitled: 'Things Jareth does that pisses Sarah off.'

Not letting her out of the marriage is number one.

Leaving glitter in the bathroom sink every day is number two.

Toby seems perkier with the promise of his favorite food for dinner. He runs off to watch TV while Sarah gets the stove on. While she waits for the pasta to cook, she tackles her math homework. Always best to get that out of the way first so she doesn't kill herself with it later on.

Headlights appear in the window at a quarter past like clockwork. Sarah sighs and sets her books down for later. Toby is already in front of the door and Sarah places a hand on his shoulder (never know when she'll have to push him behind her and use her body as a shield). Jareth opens the door with his usual flourish. He's wearing a blue tie today and his sweater vest is missing. That tie is also looser than it should be and his collar is open at the top, revealing a long stretch of neck.

Sarah hates him so, so much.

"Welcome home,  _darling."_

He hugs them, and Sarah catches a whiff of something like cologne on his collar. It's not something she's used to, and it's to her great horror and rage that, long after he's let go of her and sauntered off into the kitchen, she wants to be close enough to smell it again.

"Now, what is that delightful aroma?"

Sarah has a growing need to punch a wall.

"Oh, now would you look at this? My dear wife has outdone herself and cooked up a full meal tonight! I hope you're exciting to sample some, Tobias."

"Yeah, I like mac and cheese."

Sarah enters the kitchen in time to see Jareth's smirk falter, and his eyes lose their sparkle. It lasts not but a moment, but Sarah knows what it means, and there is something reassuring about the knowledge that Toby's moods don't just bother her.

Of course, not once does Jareth bring it up during dinner. He loads tomato sauce onto his plate while Sarah and Toby stick with cheese (neither of them care for red sauce), and he exalts Sarah's divine kitchen prowess until she's ready to either punch his head off his shoulders or turn into quicksand and sink into the floor.

"Sarah, you must give me this recipe to return home to my people with. The neighboring kingdoms are always looking for new delicacies to introduce among the people."

"You stick pasta in the pot, you boil it, and it gets soft. Then you eat it."

"Marvelous. I'll be sure to write it down."

' _Asshole…'_

Two hours later is Toby's bedtime. He makes less of a fuss about it, and Sarah's so tired herself that she skips his daily bath and carries him straight to bed to tuck him in.

"'Night, Sarah." He's bound to be out cold by the time his head hits the pillow. It stops Sarah from asking the questions she desperately wants to. She kisses his forehead and brushes the hair from his eyes. He really needs a haircut.

She walks out the same way she went in, with 'Orphan kid' pounding in her ears. It's so loud that she doesn't hear the footsteps behind her. It takes opening the bathroom door and seeing his reflection in the mirror behind hers. His hands are quick, muffling her scream of shock, but not hurting her either. He has such soft hands…

"You are troubled, precious," Jareth says hoarsely.

"Yeah, because there's a crazy magical king stalking me," Sarah says, pulling away from him.

She walks away from the bathroom, no longer caring about the cheesy aftertaste in her mouth or the clumps of hair that need brushing out. Right now, she'll take a rat's nest over close company with the Goblin King.

She turns a corner, and there he is in front of her. It figures that he wouldn't let her just walk off like that. For once, there's nothing playful about it either.

"Does it involve young Tobias?"

Sarah gives it one final try. She turns right around and goes back to the bathroom. He's standing in the doorway when she gets there.

"How the  _hell_ do you do that?"

He doesn't answer her, and she never expected him to in the first place. She walks past him into the spacious bathroom and sits down on the sink. He stays in the doorway, leaning with his hair down, but not teased out again. It's just a tad distracting.

"I think…" she needs a good way to phrase this that doesn't get somebody killed, or worse, bogged. "I think some of Toby's classmates are picking on him."

Jareth frowns, but the lights haven't started to flicker yet, so Sarah thinks they're okay.

"Have you seen it for yourself?"

Sarah nods, and she gives him a brief run through of that moment at the school yard. She finds she has a perfect mental image of what the kids looked like. The one who yelled was large and chubby with a shaved head and freckles. The other one had been skinny with a chipmunk face and beady eyes. She holds back on telling Jareth that part. No need to add two more goblins to Jareth's arsenal just yet.

He stays silent the whole time.  _Too_  silent. Sarah thinks this is the longest in five months that he's gone without speaking. His lips are a curved line and his arms are crossed over his chest. He's breathing slowly through his nose, and though it's not fast or heavy, he's giving Sarah the distinct impression of a bull getting ready for a charge.

"I see," he says, far too calmly. That's the kind of calm she expects has preceded wars in the past. "Perhaps we should do something."

Sarah shrugs sadly. "I'm scared to ask him. What if he won't talk to me about it?"

"Well, I don't see why that would be."

Sarah laughs without humor, not stopping until Jareth's gaze turns questioning and his face wrought with real confusion, at which point it hits her that he isn't kidding.

"This isn't an easy thing, you know," Sarah says, giving him a look. "If he didn't tell me on his own, there's a good chance he won't tell me at all."

Jareth shakes his head. "I don't understand. You mean to say he would let this injustice continue?"

"I mean that he's probably  _scared_." Sarah bunches her heads into fists. In spite of how utterly clueless he sounds, her anger has been directionless until now. "I know that fear is a foreign concept for you, but people like me and Toby- you know, people who don't have magical powers or kingdoms to rule? We're just a tad more vulnerable to this kind of thing. You have no idea what either of us are going through right now. So just don't worry about it, okay? I'll take care of Toby. He's my responsibility anyway. You just go do whatever the hell you want."

Sarah goes to her room and closes the door, not to come out for the rest of the night, and never to know how long Jareth stood there watching her go.

_**_

_Okay, I know what you're thinking. That was harsh and kind of an overreaction on my part._

_I get it. It's a cultural thing, or maybe a class thing. Either way, Jareth's not used to being anyone's punching bag, but I guess maybe I shouldn't have been such a short fuse._

_I can't help it. I've had to deal with bullying myself, first because I was a weirdo reading fantasy books during lunch instead of talking to friends, and then because I was a weirdo crying in the bathroom because my family just died and my life was in shambles._

_Luckily, that died away months ago, with all the 'mean girls' getting bored and finding other things to gossip about, like that one mega sexy English teacher who just showed up from right out of the blue. Good thing none of them are actually in Jareth's class, or I'd be right back on their radar for a whole new reason._

_I tried the next morning to talk to Toby, but he was in a much more cheerful mood today and could barely sit still. It might have something to do with the new cereal we had that contained just a bit more sugar than the old kind. Also, it was apparently field trip day for his class. They would be spending the second half of the school day at the town's fire station learning about safety and meeting real life firemen. He was so excited that I couldn't bear to wreck the mood for him by bringing up something unpleasant._

_Now, I'm sitting in fifth period again, and boy, am I regretting it. I can't stop thinking about those boys chasing Toby around the fire station or trying to look him in a room full of fire axes or somehow getting ahold of a hose and drenching him._

_Am I paranoid?_

_Yeah, a little bit._

_Losing your parents at such a young age will do that to you._

_The worst part of all is how Jareth is acting. He didn't even bother to sit down for breakfast with us (not that he ever does, but today I could've used the help), and now he's right back in 'overly flirty teacher mode.' The very first thing he did when I walked into class was commend me for my quarterly essay, which was so good that he wants to hang it up over his desk as an example of 'true literary excellence' for all the other students to follow._

_I swear to God, I do not need this right now._

**

"Now, class," Jareth paces up and down, book in hand. "Today, we will begin reading from the Canterbury Tales, a fascinating book written by a man who could hardly put pen to paper unless thoroughly intoxicated."

If Sarah wasn't so sure that Jareth was speaking from firsthand experience, she might've laughed with her classmates.

"But let's save the talk of dear old Mr. Chaucer for later in the lesson. We'll start from the beginning with The Knight's Tale. Sarah, will you read?"

It's the same as every other day. Jareth piles on the charm, everyone stares at her, the girls all wish they could be her while the guys continue complaining about how the stupid teacher is taking all the hot girls away… and Sarah patiently awaits the day that lightning spontaneously strikes and kills her. Except today there is the added bonus of worrying about her brother and wanting to scream because her idiot of a 'husband' isn't taking this seriously at all.

In fact, she's probably better off not being in his presence.

She slides her chair out.

"I'm actually not feeling well today. I think I'll go see the nurse."

It's the second time in two days Sarah has walked away from Jareth and not looked back, but this time, she's walking towards a door with a window, and in the split second before she opens it, Jareth's stricken face is reflected back at her.

She also sees some of her classmates snickering.

"Looks like a lovers spat."

"Detention, Mr. Crudup."

_**_

_I'm not going back to class. No sir. I've got some planning to do._

**

Sarah peeks over a smaller branch at the kids on the playground. After convincing the school nurse that her stomach hurt too much and she had to go home early, she had driven to the elementary school and found the perfect spot up a tree to hide and wait for Toby's class to return from the fire station. The branch she was sitting on was sturdy, and the springtime leaves hid her well from the teachers who walked by every now and then. It's not the most comfortable place for a stake-out, but Sarah will take it.

Ten minutes in, the buses drive into the lot. The kids all stream out, running for the playground instead of the school, just as Sarah hoped they would. This would be Toby's third school field trip, and each time, when they came back, the teachers let the kids run around on the playground in the thirty something minutes before the school day ended. There must be a hundred of the little tykes, and it takes Sarah time to spot Toby's bright red t-shirt. He's over by the swing-set, helping a pigtail wearing girl on the swing go higher. When another swing opens up, Toby grabs it. He remains there until the bell rings. He seems to be having a contest with the girl to see who can swing the highest (she's winning). Nobody else ever comes over.

The cars are starting to line up. Sarah should be smack in the middle of them. Even Monster Truck guy is back, and he appears to have all new decal on the tires and body of his truck. Sarah waits until the chaperones and teachers have led the children back inside to collect their things before she jumps down from the tree and runs for her car, parked on the far end of the school where hopefully no one would see it.

Even though nothing happened today, she still has to talk to Toby. Much as she'd love to fake sick every day and get out of school and come here to protect him like he's made of fine china, that's not going to work out in the long run. Eventually, some busy-body soccer mom is going to decide that the weirdo girl hanging around the school every day is clearly a dangerous stalker and call the police.

Sarah's trek over the fence to her car ends before she's gotten her footing on the rungs. Cruel laughter fills the air and shoots straight through her chest. She finds that Toby is no longer alone. Those boys are blocking him from getting inside, and one of them, the chipmunk faced one, has thrust out his arms and pushed Toby into the mud.

"Hey!"

Sarah stalks over, smoking coming out of her ears.

Toby looks up, flecks of mud have sprayed onto his cheeks, and his eyes are wobbling.

"Sarah?"

"Who the heck are you?" Chipmunk face demands.

Sarah ignores him. She picks Toby up and brushes him off. Aside from needing a bath and some clean clothes, he's no worse for the wear.

"I'm fine," Toby says, holding back tears.

"I know, honey, I'm sorry," she says softly. She pushes him behind her, her expression hardening as she faces the bullies. "You two have some nerve picking on a little boy like that. You should be ashamed of yourselves."

"Not our fault he's a crybaby!" says the chubby one.

"Yeah, he's a total wimp," says Chipmunk face, "and his parents are dead."

Sarah give and incredulous laugh. "So for that reason, you decide to pick on him. That's great. Do either of you know what a sociopath is?"

The boys stare dumbly at her.

"Of course you don't. You probably don't even know how to count past ten." Sarah crouches down, remembers the time some guy tried to grab her butt in front of Jareth, and does her best to remember the look on his face that day. The two boys back up a little. "Now you two listen, and you listen good. If you ever go near my brother again, I will have the both of you kicked out of this school before you can say 'Juvie.' You get it?"

They start to fidget. Toby is clutching the back of Sarah's shirt, and she pats his head to calm him. Chipmunk face must be the leader of the two boys, because the chubby one is looking to him now.

"You can't tell us what to do," says Chipmunk face. He puffs out his chest in a failed attempt to look tough and intimidating. Maybe it would work better once he broke five feet and grew some more hair.

"What the hell is going on here?"

The man coming over is everything Chipmunk face would have to be if he's going to scare anyone. He's also Monster Truck guy, if Sarah's eyes aren't deceiving her. He's very tall, well over six feet, and covered from head to toe in tattoos. His head is shaved cleaner than the chubby kid, and his arms and upper body are incredibly over-muscled, as evidenced by the fish net tank top he's wearing over baggy pants and combat boots. He's about as close to the stereotypical tough guy as one could get without a motorcycle and an American flag bandana on his head.

Chipmunk face lights up when he sees him.

"This crazy chick is bugging us, bro!" he shouts, pointing at Sarah. "She thinks we're bullying her stupid brother."

Monster Truck guy appraises the scene. Sarah steps a little to the side to cover Toby better.

"Excuse me," she says. "I don't  _think_  anything. I  _saw_  your brother push  _my_  brother into the mud, and I want to hear an apology and a promise that they're going to leave Toby alone from now on."

Monster Truck guy raises an eyebrow, and it occurs to Sarah now that his face really is a carbon copy of his younger brother's, with the addition of some five o'clock shadow and a snake tattoo that reaches his jaw.

"Well, maybe you should teach your brother not to be such a little pussy," he says. "Maybe then my brother wouldn't have a problem with him."

"How dare you!" If Sarah wasn't so sure this guy was on steroids and that trying to punch him would give her a broken, she would not have held back for a second. It would set a bad example for Toby anyway, and in the end, Sarah doesn't need to act. The air around them is changing in that way she now knows so well, and a shadow that she would know anywhere is crawling overhead. He almost makes the sky seem darker. He's definitely increasing the pressure.

"What the- where'd you come from?" Monster Truck guy cries.

Sarah doesn't turn around. She doesn't need to once Jareth's hand comes to rest on her shoulder and he presses her to his chest.

"Pardon me, good sir," he says. "Are you having a problem with my dear Sarah and my ward?"

Monster Truck guy's jaw drops. Some kind of 'dying animal' sound is coming out of his mouth, but mostly he's just looking at his brother and his brother's friend, as if they have all the answers to how the hell some guy in a sweater vest could've appeared out of thin air without anybody noticing. The crowd of parents and children don't bat an eyelash at the scene, where before Jareth arrived, at least two sets of parents had pulled their children away as fast as they could.

When Monster Truck guy finds his voice again, he immediately points at Jareth.

"Just who the hell do you think you are?"

Jareth chuckles.

"It appears all that metal in your ear is obstructing your hearing. Keep in mind, I don't like to repeat myself, but since I'm feeling generous, I will allow you this one." Jareth walks around Sarah and sticks out his hand. "I am Jareth King, a teacher at the nearby high school. I am also a friend assisting Sarah in the raising of her brother after the tragic death of their mother and father, something I believe your brother found reason enough to torment young Toby over. It should go without saying that I hope you'll rectify the situation."

That might have been one too many big words for Monster Truck guy, who's head is clearly spinning as he tries and fails to formulate a response.

"I- you- I- why don't I just kick your ass?"

Jareth grins and it's terrifying. He takes a step towards Monster Truck guy, who looks like he can rip trees in half as has a good six inches on Jareth. But Jareth is more than just a man, he's a force of nature, and the way he carries himself, you would think he's ten feet tall. That's before all the magic and reality warping comes in. Monster Truck guy doesn't stand a chance.

"If you wish for this to become physical, I would at least ask that you mind your language around the children. It wouldn't do to set a bad example for them. They listen and absorb so much from their elders, and if their main source of emulation comes from a man who stomps around flaunting his musculature like he has something to prove, that is not going to reflect well on them later in life. Perhaps you should think more about your brother's well-being and less about being the most- oh what is the word…  _hardass_  fellow on the block."

Monster Truck guy is gaping like a fish. Sarah has to work extra hard not to start laughing (she'll tell him later that the word he's looking for is  _badass_ ), but she hopes Jareth doesn't really plan on engaging the idiot in a fight.

Whether he does or he doesn't, Monster Truck guy is smart enough to know when he's outmatched.

"You know what, forget it," he grumbles, grabbing his brother's shoulder and dragging him away. "We have to get home before Mom does anyway. Come on, Benny."

The chubby kid runs after them, while Sarah releases a long sigh of relief. Afterwards, she feels like she's lost half her body weight from that alone.

"I think I want to go home now."

Jareth's smile turns warm.

Magic swirls around them, but they're not gone yet when Chipmunk face's voice rings out.

"No way are you walking away, Ricky! You can take that nerdy guy!"

"Drop it, Ben. Forget about that kid and his phony family. Let's just get out of here."

The magic drops, but it doesn't dissipate. It simmers, seeping into the ground and spreading to the very top of the blades of grass where Monster Truck guy is standing. When he feels it, he stops, and he turns around to see shadows darkening Jareth and Sarah's expressions. He shrinks away from them, as if he's no longer facing a man and a woman, but instead a pair of demons.

"Jareth… did he just call us a  _phony family_?" Sarah asks lightly.

"Yes, my love, I believe he did."

"Oh no, that is unacceptable."

"Indeed. He'll have to be punished for suggesting such a thing."

Jareth releases a crystal. It shatters over Monster Truck guy's head, and he vanishes to a place where no one will hear him scream. Poor Chipmunk kid loses all color, staring in horror at the place his brother once stood. Even his friend has abandoned him, having run off crying for his mother back when Jareth and Sarah's collective fury started to smother all life within a twenty feet radius.

"Run home, boy," Jareth tells Chipmunk kid. "Run as fast as you can. Your brother will be there when you return, and perhaps now he'll be a little wiser. You'd do good to follow his example. Let us never have to meet again."

And now, finally, the magic surges around them, wrapping them in a cocoon and carrying them home.

**

"That was awesome!"

Toby is still talking about it at dinner that night.

"That was the coolest thing I've ever seen! You guys totally kicked those guys' butts!"

Food spews from his mouth, and Sarah wipes his face off with a napkin.

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, but don't talk with your mouth full."

She takes another bite of her pepperoni pizza, eyeing Jareth as he uses the good silverware to cut another piece off his vegetable slice. He insists on eating pizza like it's a piece of filet mignon, no matter how many times Sarah tells him how anal that is.

"Sarah, I think this might be your best meal yet," he says, and at least he waits until he's swallowed to start buttering her up for no reason. "I give my highest compliments to the chef!"

"I'll be sure to let the guys at Frank's pizza know."

She finishes her first slice and goes for a second, even though she's not so hungry tonight. She probably won't even finish this one. She barely got through the first one.

"I hope I grow up to be as cool as you guys someday," Toby says.

Sarah wraps her arm around his head and kisses his cheek. He always hates when Sarah does that. She always does it anyway.

"We'll see about that, squirt."

"I foresee that Toby will grow to be a great man," Jareth says. "One day, he will command respect from his allies and strike fear in the hearts of his enemies. He'll be a perfect successor to my throne and a boon on the title of Goblin King."

That was going really well until he started with all that 'successor' stuff. Where he ever got the idea that Sarah would allow him to groom her precious baby brother to be his little princeling was beyond her, because that was about as likely to happen as Jareth wearing baggy pants of his own volition, which is to say, no way in hell.

Sarah doesn't say that yet. Toby is excited enough by the notion of being as 'cool' as Jareth one day. He jumps up and down, bursting at the seams with excitement, until Jareth scoops him up and carries him upstairs to bed. Lately, Jareth is the only one who can make her brother sit still and go to sleep when he's in a happy mood.

Someday, Sarah is going to have to sit down and really think about why Toby idolizes Jareth and how in the hell they got to that point in the first place. That's somewhere in between 'letting goblins keep a chicken coop in the basement' and 'waking her up every morning by singing in the shower' on the list of reasons why she he pisses her off.

He comes back in time to watch Sarah store the leftover pizza in the refrigerator and throw the empty boxes in the garbage. He sits at the kitchen table, head propped up in his hand. For some reason, he's gone back to his Kingly regalia for the night. Sarah can only guess that he has somewhere to be after this, or that he just feels more comfortable in his natural state. She could kind of understand that.

"Are you well?" he asks.

Sarah shrugs, and then decides that's not a good way to answer him.

"I'm better now that Toby is okay."  _'And I'm sorry about what I said to you last night. That was rude and inconsiderate of me.'_ It niggles at Sarah, as it has all through dinner, when she placated the urge by telling herself that she'd apologize after Toby was in bed. Now that that excuse was off the table, Sarah is starting to wonder if she's not just a dirty, rotten coward underneath all the posturing after all.

Jareth hums to himself, playing with one of his crystals as he's wont to do when he's bored and conversation is fleeting (this is often).

"By the way," Sarah says, "You didn't actually hurt that guy, right?"

Jareth's eyes flick to her. He gives an evil grin.

"Why, Sarah. Concerned over such a useless waste of air?"

"I'm more concerned about not having the cops over here because he disappeared without a trace and we're the last one who ever saw him."

Jareth purses his lips. The crystal is sucked away into nothingness and he raises himself up.

"I did not lie to that boy. His brother was waiting safe and sound for him when he returned home," Jareth's obscenely nimble fingers play with a stray lock of her hair. "Of course, there might be a slight discrepancy between the amount of time it takes the boy to reach home and the time his brother spends in my oubliette."

"How much of a 'discrepancy'?"

Jareth grins a devilish grin. "Let's just say, your time in the Labyrinth was nothing at all."

Sarah smiles back, and it's just slightly less evil and wholly more satisfied.

"I think it's safe to say that those two will learn an important lesson from all this." Jareth gets up from his chair, standing over her with the force of his presence enshrouding her, stilling her. "I hope you will not exclude me from such matters again."

The hurt in his voice cannot be feigned. At least, Sarah hopes it can't. She closes her eyes and hushes the side of her that disbelieves everything he says, because she wants to believe that he's honest about this. She needs to more than anything, or none of this will ever work.

"Listen, I'm… I'm sorry for how I acted." She turns to face him. "I was scared for Toby and scared for myself, and I overreacted and… and I don't know. I'm just sorry."

Her babbling is an accident, something she can't help when she beholds a sight she never expected to see. The emotion that had been heavy in his words extends to his face, which looks a bit like today at school when she walked out of class, but infinitely sadder. Sadness is something Sarah had always thought the Goblin King incapable of. That had not changed after their marriage. It likely would not have changed at this whole mess not occurred. Could it be that there was a positive spin to it all?

That depends on how ready Sarah is to see the Goblin King as more than a two-dimensional villain, but she's starting to think that this has been in the making for a long time. For at least five months now. All they needed was the right push.

He is close, but not too close. If she liked, she could reach and touch his hair in turn. It does look particularly messy like this. Her hands tingle with a need to fix it up a little, even though she's never been good with that sort of thing. She can't explain it, it's just the way he's looking at her right now. This is how lost puppies look at people who smell like their owners, but aren't quite the one they're looking for. It's so unlike him that she almost thinks she's looking at an entirely different person.

"You don't have to apologize," he says softly. He closes his eyes. "But you should know you were wrong about one thing: I can feel fear. I did today, and I have before."

An image enters Sarah's mind, one she thinks for a moment he implanted himself magically. He didn't, she came upon it herself, simply through the thickness of his words and the heady gaze that hypnotizes her.

She sees Jareth, back at his castle in the center of the Labyrinth. She sees him watching through his crystals, the way he showed her himself that he could do while extolling to her all the virtues and benefits of being wife to so powerful a fae king. Back then, she'd thought pretty much the same about that as she did about his teaching methods: he was a show-off and a blowhard. Maybe she'd be more impress if he could extract his head just a tiny bit out of his ass. That seems so far separated from this, because now she sees Jareth at his throne, staring intently into one of those crystals. Within its depths are herself and Toby, starving and freezing under a bus stop no one else would ever come upon. She must have looked like a mess, a pathetic, homeless mess with nothing and no one in the world but what she had on her back and in her arms. She thought she could see Jareth all but out of his throne, watching and waiting and hoping that she'd just stop for a minute and think of him. If she could just call to him, because of course he couldn't just go to her of his own volition. He had no power over her after all.

It's an interesting thought; a comforting one at that. Could she find it in herself to believe that Jareth had wanted to help her? Not just to have one over her or to get revenge for his defeat. Was it possible that he could have just cared that much?

It goes against everything she's ever thought to know about the Goblin King.

Maybe that's a good thing.

_**_

_There was a moment a few days after I 'proposed' to Jareth and he brought us to the new home that he'd purchased for us (he failed to mention in his speech about the large backyard and proximity to the school that it was actually my old house until we were on the lawn walking towards it, and the FOR SALE sign was gone). I was still reeling off the fact that I was now wife to the freaking Goblin King of all people and not really in the mood to talk._

_That was fine by Jareth, because if he didn't have me, he sure as hell had Toby. I wasn't kidding when I said that Toby took to Jareth right away. It's almost scary how fast my little brother went from hiding behind my leg to following Jareth around everywhere and trying to mimic his behavior: the way he walked, the way he talked. He even refused to go to the barbershop because he wanted to grow his hair out like Jareth. Naturally I was checking his breath for peaches about five or six times a day at that point._

_Anyway, it was right when Jareth was leading us into the house, prattling on about how perfect a home it was for newlyweds with a child to care for, as if this wasn't the house Toby and I had spent our lives in with Dad and Karen. Of course, Toby didn't care one lick about any of that, just so long as he could have his bed, his stuff, and some semblance of normality back._

_Well, he had it._

_All thanks to Jareth. I didn't know how I was supposed to feel about that._

_At least, I didn't until I started going back to my bedroom (which was as untouched as Toby's room) to hopefully get some sleep for an hour or ten. That was when Toby ran out of his room, right past me in a flash, and ran straight to Jareth, hugging him around the legs._

" _Thank you, Jareth!" he shouted, his little voice tinkling like a bell. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! You're the best ever."_

_And Jareth had been… strangely humble about the whole thing. Oh sure, he gloated to hell and back about it when Toby was asleep and it was just the two of us ('I always knew he was a smart boy,' he said), but right at that moment, he had nothing to say, nothing to do except pat Toby on the head, then pick him up and carry him to bed. I followed them, and I saw that Toby had drifted off somewhere in the time it took Jareth to lower him onto the mattress and cover him. My poor little brother, sleeping peacefully for the first time in weeks, the reason for it all actually tucking him in like a real parent would. I had to remind myself again and again that Jareth was no friend of mine. He was the man who had kidnapped my brother and tried to turn him into a goblin. I had to tell myself that he was my enemy, and just because he was helping us now didn't mean it would last forever, or that he wouldn't attach some BS catch to the deal somewhere down the line._

_Any day, I thought, I could wake up on a bed of straw with brown wrinkly skin and an uncontrollable urge to chase chickens all day. I could turn around and forget everything I ever knew about myself, about whom I am and where I've been. To be around someone who wielded that kind of power, let alone being married to him, was more than intimidating. I was afraid to turn my back to him some days, because lord only knows what would've happened if I did._

_After Toby was in bed for the night, Jareth left him, and walked into the hall where I was. I don't remember much about our exchange, or if we even had one. Much as I would've loved to blame Jareth for that, it was really just because I hadn't slept properly in days and was even more exhausted than Toby probably was. I do remember Jareth picking me up, bridal style of course, and carrying me to my bedroom, which he just so happened to know the way to._

" _You need sleep as well, precious," he said to me. "Can't have my lovely new wife aging prematurely by losing sleep."_

_I may have rolled my eyes and given him some kind of snappy retort. If I didn't, I should have. I know that he put me to bed too, and though his face hovered close to mine as he pulled the blankets to my neck, our lips never met._

_I watched him leave my room, turn the lights off and shut the door. I didn't know where he was going and I didn't care, but a thought was blossoming in the back of my mind, one that was probably a long time in the making._

_I knew then and there that I could not stand him. I really couldn't._

**

He seems all too close. Even though he really isn't- he's mindful of her personal space- she still feels trapped, smothered by his presence. He has his hands on the table. Sometimes he patted her on the arm or hugged her tightly to bother her. He never wears gloves anymore. His hands are so soft that she could hold them forever.

"You know," she bites her lip and sucks on it. "I was thinking…"

He leans in, and Sarah can't stop herself from responding in kind.

"Thinking about what?"

She lets go of her lip before she draws blood. Tension is pounding through every facet of her being. It clouds her and it clears her mind all at once, in a way she cannot possibly explain but to say this is how her father must have felt when he saw her mother for the first time.

"How come you've never kissed me?"

He raises an eyebrow, while Sarah mentally kicks herself. Whatever happened to thinking before she opened her fat trap?

"You expected me to?"

"No," she says defensively, and with a mumble, she backs off. "I just thought you might've tried by now. We're married, and you're you… and I guess I wouldn't mind it so much, or maybe…"

He's hovering over her, but not for the reason she suggests. His face is far too severe for that. He bends down to her level. He may not be the tallest, but he still has a good amount of height over her.

"Sarah, be reasonable," he says. "You know far less about me than you think you do." He draws her close, just like that night five months ago, and where Sarah's brain tells her to back away now before it's too late, her body and her heart drive her forward, on to claim her prize.

It's all futile anyway.

"I can say… that you are correct in that I want more than what we have now." His hand meets her soft cheek. She feels leather where there had been skin only seconds ago. "However, I think you are not quite ready for all that I want from you, so I don't mind waiting until the time that you are. I feel that that day is not far off at all."

He smiles and turns away, stretching like it's him who needs to go and rest up for the coming day, and like she hasn't gone completely limp behind him, unable to move until all her nerves and hormones drop down to a semi-manageable level, and she remembers how to walk again.

_**_

_God, I hate him._

_I hate him so freaking much._

_My list of reasons why I hate him is a mile long, or it would be, were I writing it all down._

_And the worst part of all… well, let's just say I may have fibbed a little right off the bat. Not letting me out of the marriage really isn't the top reason why I can't stand the Goblin King. In fact, it might not even be a reason at all._

_The biggest reason why I hate him- the whole reason I started hating him to start with- is because I've always known that the bastard was going to make me fall in love with him._

_And he did._

**

Sarah wakes up the next morning alone in her room, with un-kissed lips and a mind that has yet to be free of the eternal frustration that stupid old Goblin King constantly gives her.

She goes to the bathroom, only to find it occupied by His Laziness, who is singing rather loudly over the shower water, and continues to do so for the next fifteen minutes, until Sarah is running so late for school that she sucks it up and gets ready to force the door open. It gives easily, having never been locked in the first place. The bathroom is empty, save for a crystal that stops singing the second she's in the room. It emits the sound of his laughter and goes dead.

"JARETH!"

_**_

_Have I mentioned that I hate him?_

_Because I do._

_I really do._

_But at the same time, I love him._

_I hate him and I love him._

_It's insane, isn't it?_

_But I guess that's just married life for you._


End file.
